North Carolina man pleads guilty to 2015 murders of three Muslim students

Judge said Craig Stephen Hicks agreed as part of his plea to accept three consecutive life sentences without parole

A North Carolina man has pleaded guilty to gunning down three Muslim university students, as one of the victims’ relatives fainted in court, others wept openly and a man hurled an expletive at the confessed killer.

Craig Stephen Hicks, 50, entered the plea to three counts of first-degree murder in a packed Durham courtroom. It came more than four years after the February 2015 killings and two months after incoming district attorney Satana Deberry dropped plans to seek the death penalty in hopes of concluding a case that she said had languished too long.